Joshua's Breakdown
by RusNydia
Summary: Josh can't live without Katie, he would rather die. Katie can't let that happen. Directly after episode 16.


Its cliche, a oneshot and it needs to get off my computer so I can stop looking at it.

I saw Episode 16 and let me tell you… I literally _cried_ because of it. It's not fair that… that damn lying jackass of a monster gets to ruin my poor Will/Joshua/The Watcher's life!

(**)

He didn't know where he was going. He didn't care. She didn't love him—no, she never loved him. Her words get repeating in his mind, her sweet face crumbling as her anger and sorrow beat themselves into his memory.

'_How can I love someone I've never known?' _

Joshua barely blinked as a trashcan launched itself five blocks forward. He was on his knees now, her words creating a cruel mantra in his ears. They echoed and swirled around him, causing the tears that he had been holding back to drip down his cheeks. A streetlight burst next to him, showering him in the light sheet of glass.

'_Don't hurt him… let me do it.' _

He wanted it to stop. He loved her with all of his heart. Never in his life had Joshua loved anything with the intensity that he had—did—Katie. It hurt to even think her name. He hated to even think of the name he had told her because he made it for her.

A fire hydrant shot out of the ground, water pouring into the streets. Joshua let out an agonizing scream of pain that echoed down the streets and caused glass to shatter from miles around. The ground shook under his feet, asphalt trying to rip itself from the ground and into the air. His veins popped out on his neck and his eyes narrowed as he focused his energy onto himself.

He wouldn't do it anymore. He wouldn't live knowing that he would never be normal. He would never experience the kind of love that made him want to give up his abilities again. He would never see the smile that only Katie could have. He would never hear her rambles and her giggles. He just wouldn't be.

"Your heart… it's starting to slow down…" he whispered out loud, his voice tight. His heart jumped and the framework on another house collapsed on itself. He didn't care. Joshua gritted his teeth together and focused on his heart. He imagined it beating in his chest, slowly collapsing like the house.

"It's starting to get dark… you can't hear anything… can you?" Joshua continued, looking straight forward. The edges of the world were disappearing and he couldn't bring himself to care but… his hearing didn't die. He could still hear her voice. He couldn't see her but he could hear the clacking of her heels as she ran to give him a hug, could hear her voice calling out his name.

"Joshua! Josh, oh please don't do this!" she sounded so far off but so real at the same time.

The former Watcher felt a sob tear itself from his throat. He could almost feel her warm touch, smell her sweet scent.

"NO!" he hissed and focused back on his stubborn heart. He would die and he would do it now. He couldn't live without her and he would not live imagining that she still loved him. A streetlight fell over and landed before his kneeling figure, sparks lying from the open wires.

"It's getting slower… so much slower… you can't feel anything now… you can barely see," he continued. His vision was nothing but a pinpoint and the cold numbness of death was starting to take ahold of his body and his mind. A smile came to his face but it wasn't because he was dying, which he deserved. No, it was because he could see her.

Katie was there, running towards him. Oh that was good… seeing her before he died. But she wasn't smiling as he always seen her. She was so worried with her mouth half opened as she dashed across the shaking asphalt. She kept her balance remarkably well, waving her arms rather comically.

"Your heart… it's going so slow isn't it?" he murmured. He wanted to wave at his hallucination or get up and run to her but he didn't because his body… his body couldn't move. It was working. He was dying but his hallucination wasn't leaving. She was still running towards him… running so…

(**)

"It's going to be okay."

Katie let out a loud sob, unable to formulate a single sentence. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair! Love never turned its back in the comics! Tony Stark and Pepper Potts didn't fall under their sexual tension only for it to blow up in their faces. Peter Parker and Mary Jane…

"What do you think he meant by Daphne knowing too much?" Jim asked, trying to distract her from her breaking heart. Katie let out several sobs and gasps, moving her hands around in a ditch effort to tell him that she didn't rightly care.

"He did say that she couldn't read his mind. She must have broken in and saw everything… that's why her memory was erased," Stephanie tried to guess. She was pacing around the room, barely holding herself from speeding around. Katie needed her.

"Listen, I… I appreciate you guys trying to… to help but… Joshua just… I just… I just want to…" Katie traveled off into a pitch of hysterical babbling, gesturing to the door. To their surprise the door slammed open, hitting the wall roughly.

Stephanie jumped and Jim whirled around to see who did that but Katie wasn't paying attention to that. She was looking back down, expecting to see the beautiful blue eyes that she fell in love with twinkling back at her but they were still closed. He wasn't awake.

Her Joshua was still unconscious after trying to _kill_ himself. She had ran so fast and so hard to tell him that she loved him. To tell him that she wanted the truth before they separated. She was so tired of taking everything at a face value. She would not sacrifice her love without knowing everything there was to know. Then he tried to actually kill himself.

"If he's not awake then who…?" Stephanie whispered to Jim. The bald man opened his mouth to say something but looked back at the normally bouncing lab assistant and shook his head. He gently wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulder and began to lead her out of their room where they had taken the suicidal man.

At first he had protested but the look on Katie's face as cradled the dying man, one hand on his cheek and that last smile he got as he looked up at her… that was love. It was true love and he wasn't going to stand in between it but he would get answers about his daughter and his family later on.

(**)

He wasn't dead.

It was the first thought that came into his mind. He didn't need to open his eyes to know that he wasn't with his many victims in the hottest level of Hell.

His powers had failed him. His powers hadn't taken his life as they should have. That was just typical. The time in which he actually wanted to use his abilities to kill like the monster that he was… that was the day he couldn't accomplish it. It was karma getting him back, wasn't it?

Joshua let out a dry chuckle and felt his mind flex, causing something in the room he found himself in to fly and crash into the wall. Obviously he would have to kill himself the old fashion way…

"Oh Joshua—you're awake, open your eyes!" Katie urged. Joshua frowned and he immediately opened his eyes and came nose to nose with the love of his life. Her big, brown eyes were red rimmed and searching his face desperately. He blinked back at her and reached up, praying that she wasn't a hallucination. Then again he could be dead and the last months with his Katie had made up for all of the untold horrors he committed so this was his award in Heaven.

"You're not dead, Joshua," Katie insisted, a watery smile coming to her beautiful lips. Joshua's fingers connected with her solid, smooth cheek. Her skin was as soft as he remembered it. It felt as though they had been separated for weeks even though it really was only a few hours, maybe days seeing as Joshua was not really sure as to what happened after his attempted suicide.

"How…? I never failed before…" Joshua whispered. Katie let out a noise that was a cross between a sob and a chuckle. Her soft, delicate hand overlaid on his as she pressed her warm cheek into his icy fingers.

"You tried to kill yourself—my assumption is that you attacked your own heart with your telekinesis like Carrie did to her mother but in your stage between life and death, your powers stopped and I revived you—well Dr. Powell helped you," Katie then went on to ramble about a comic of one type or another but Joshua could not think about that. He was thinking of how she smelled, how her skin felt against his hand, and how her voice sound.

"I still love you Joshua… but I was serious when I said that I cannot love someone that I do not know. Everything that you've kept hidden from me—tell me now," Katie broke him out of his trance with a firm tone that Joshua had never heard from Katie during their entire relationship. Joshua licked his lips and studied her face as much as she searched his. Finally he gave a tiny nod and pulled himself up into a sitting position. If he wanted to stay with Katie—and God knew that he did—then he would tell her. There would be no excuses in this situation.

(**)

"What I said about being orphaned at six was true. My parents died and Dr. King adopted me when I was six years old—as a test subject for the serum. They improved me but he would often see how long until I needed the next one and how long my abilities lasted and how strong I was. It was torture but I learned that without him I was literally a dead man. He groomed me to be the perfect soldier for him, punishing me with withdrawals whenever I failed. He called me The Watcher. There were times where people came too close to the answers or simply failed him and I was sent to kill them," Joshua paused and looked at Katie. She had the facial expression that told him that she was listening and memorizing everything that he said.

"I was sent to get close to Dr. Powell to see how much she knew. At first, I was dating you to hear of your research but then… then I got to know you. You made me happy—happier than having my powers made me. When I realized how happy you made me, I started to lie to Dr. King. I had already figured out everything but I couldn't tell him because he'd hurt you and the Powell family.

"I tried so hard to keep the secret within this family but you people are so… so clumsy! You didn't seem to care that there were cameras everywhere, you didn't realize that Victoria wasn't someone you knew… you people…" Joshua let out a sad laugh, "I… Daphne was getting so close—too close to the truth that I had to kill her but I would never hurt a child so I erased her memories. I had not meant to erase them for the three months—I was too deep in my withdrawals and too desperate to know the answer to their permanence and… I was… I was scared. I was scared she'd get the tiniest of recollections and hurt my chances with you."

Katie was silent, staring at him to find even the tiniest hints of a lie.

"How… how do you know the shape shifter and what's your real name?"

"We used to date—when you are an experiment you find that it's hard to get close to anyone unless they are the same as you," Joshua answered calmly then he stopped talking. No one knew his real name. He had gone as far as to wipe it from Dr. King's memory even though the man had protested loudly.

His name was something that was completely him—something that wasn't mutated or twisted beyond recognition. He couldn't tell her. He couldn't let go of that small part of him that was still that sick, dying child that had been so scared and confused as he was held down and injected over and over. His tiny body had been raked by horrible tremors and his heart had tried to lurch from his chest as if to escape the pain.

He could almost see himself pushing himself into a corner and away from the nurses. Then the injections started working more than making him healthy. In his panic he threw all of them far away. Their bodies crashed through the wall and he had run. He ran as fast as he could, pushing everything out of his way. He forced the doors to burst. He made bullets and darts stop on their journey to him. He turned weapons on their owners, chocked them with his mind…

"Joshua?" Katie whispered as the bed levitated slightly before dropping heavily. The pictures on the wall shook slightly but the man barely looked conscious. His eyes were glazed over and he was staring over her head.

"Joshua?" Katie shrieked as her chair began to rise with her still on it. She grabbed on the edge, letting out a shriek as it began to fall rapidly fast to the ground. Instead of hitting the carpeted floor let the fallen chair, she levitated for a long moment, gently sliding down onto the bed and into Joshua's open arms.

"It's… my birth name was Ezekiel Gibson but now I am Joshua King—Ezekiel died when he was six."

Then Jim and Stephanie came bursting through the door.

(**)

The End

I'm not sure if I should stick with this whole thing or leave it as a one-shot… I'm thinking one-shot. I might have taken some things from Carrie… I just finished reading the book.


End file.
